My '06 Cory Ness JP arrived yesterday...I was totally stoked! Unfortunately once they got it out of the trailer and tried to start it no go. It came from ~90 degree sunny Arizona weather to the 20's here last night in Chicago and transport to delivery time was close to a week and a half with no trickle charger. I hooked up my charger last night and set it to automatic mode and it was showing the battery charged. I hooked up my multimeter and was showing up to 12.6V. Ended up plugging in the Battery Tender which will show red when its charging the battery and green when it in maintain mode...showed red last night and green this morning before I left for work.
Just got home today and went to give it another shot....turned the key to ON, waited a few secs...the headlight powered up then the digital tach and the fuel pump relay started clicking. If I try the start button everything dims so it's apparently a bad battery that got shocked by the cold. I'm planning on picking up a new one tomorrow from any store that's open....just have 2 questions:

1 - any recommendations on "best battery"...I know it's subjective, but if you've had bad experiences with any particular brand I'd love to hear it...

2 - is the fuel pump relay clicking a normal occurrence with a bad battery, not getting enough juice to prime? I'm just hoping there's nothing else wrong. The guy I bought it from was very meticulous and the bike started up without a blip as evidenced by the shipper before he loaded it in the trailer.

Before you buy a new battery check the battery cables. My 06 would loosen up and then it's a no go. If they are tight check the voltage regulator connection. Mine came loose when I first got the bike and it was a nightmare. Good luck.

Dave is right. Disconnect the battery terminals and clean them good with a wire brush or sand paper. I normally put some dielectric grease between the battery terminal and whatever is the first eye connection/cable.

Vic's are very finicky when it comes to a weak battery or bad connections. More so on the newer models but since all Vic's are EFI; they are all sensitive to it.

Sorry. Can't recommend the best battery. Seems like a crap shoot most the time to me.

I personally have never heard a fuel pump click. It either spins right up or it doesn't in my experience. Starters click when there isn't enough battery power though.

Sorry Handy but my multi never reads 14 It reads 12.6 and while running around 14. Brand new battery too

Silly me... I was thinking that the bike was running, but I didn't say so. Testing a battery at rest gives an indication whether or not the battery is good, but fails to say what's going on with the whole system.

Thanks for the help guys. Here's an update....
Had some time this afternoon to delve into the bike. Checked all the connections, took the battery ground off (allen screw to the block forward of the battery) checked it and screwed it back on....nothing changed. The battery was still reading 12.8V. Ended up taking it to the part store and the load test showed ~1V output so it was gone. Picked up a new one, set it up and had it charging the last 6 hours. Just installed it and rolled it out to the driveway to crank.
I don't recall if I mentioned this in the 1st post or not, but the bike has a Dynojet PC 3 and was tuned in Arizona (~90 degree weather) prior to me buying it. Right now it's in the 30's here.....so....cranked it a few times and it ended up turning over (those pipes are loud!) and the exhaust smelled really rich (which I've read is typical for warm up....and as the temp is so cold right now). So it ran for a minute or so then died. Tried cranking it again and wouldn't turn over. I'm wondering if it's due to the weather and the tune on it right now...not getting enough fuel to fire??? I don't know.....I'm too used to carbs on the last bike.